One offseason trade suggestion

I know this is hardly the time to bring these things up, but occasionally something happens that perks your ears up a little bit. The Baltimore Orioles just signed rookie catcher Samuel Basallo to an eight year contract a week after calling him up. He was a top 15 overall major league prospect according to three different publications coming into the season. Obviously, the Orioles are high on him and consider him their catcher of the future.

That means that Adley Rutschman is not the Orioles catcher of the future. It is highly likely that he will be dealt in the winter as the Orioles reorganize themselves moving forward. I am suggesting that the Astros should be first in line. There are two major reasons for this suggestion. We should start by comparing Rutschman to Yainer Diaz defensively. I think the implications should be pretty obvious right off the bat.

Fielding Considerations

Adley Rutschman: 374 games, 3117.1 INN, +33 defensive runs saved, +11 Fielding Run Value
Yainer Diaz: 253 games, 2068.2 INN, -5 defensive runs saved, -13 Fielding Run Value

If we are to assume that a regular catcher would average around 1000 innings a season, then Rutschman has three seasons worth of innings and Diaz has two. So, Rutschman averages +11 according to DRS and almost +4 according to FRV. Diaz sits at about -3 DRS per season and -7 according to FRV. So, we are looking at somewhere between a win and 1.5 wins defensively depending on your source.

Outside of Jose Altuve, Diaz is arguably the team’s least accomplished defender according to DRS and FRV. Rutschman would end up being one of the better fielders on the team. It is remarkable how making one switch would turn around the overall team defense. This doesn’t even mention the impact on the pitching staff in terms of called balls and strikes.

Hitting Considerations

One of the things I remember vividly about the transition from the 2016 season to the 2017 season was in how Jeff Luhnow changed the shape of the roster with just a few key moves. Colby Rasmus was out in right field. Josh Reddick was in. Brian McCann took over as the primary catcher. Carlos Beltran took over as the primary designated hitter. Not all of those moves worked out individually, but the club went from having the highest strikeout rate in the league to the lowest.

In previous articles we have looked at the problems with offensive efficiency. It came down to a couple of different things, but we will throw in strikeout rate just for fun. That 2017 club led the league in runs scored because it had more power, struck out fewer times, and drew more walks. Let’s see what happens to the Astros lineup by simply exchanging Diaz for Rutschman. You’ll notice ten hitters. We will get to that later. Here are the career averages for each hitter in these three categories.

C Adley Rutschman: 16.1 K%, 11.8 BB%, .158 ISO
1B Christian Walker: 23.2 K%, 9.4 BB%, .207 ISO
2B Jose Altuve: 13.0 K%, 7.5 BB%, .163 ISO
3B Carlos Correa: 20.2 K%, 10.4 BB%, .190 ISO
3B Isaac Paredes: 17.2 K%, 11.2 BB%, .194 ISO
SS Jeremy Pena: 19.6 K%, 5.1 BB%, .145 ISO
LF Jesus Sanchez: 25.9 K%, 8.2 BB%, .182 ISO
CF Jake Meyers: 24.5 K%, 7.0 BB%, .133 ISO
RF Cam Smith: 28.2 K%, 8.1 BB%, .115 ISO
DH Yordan Alvarez: 19.9 K%, 12.0 BB%, .278 ISO

Ignoring the numbers problem for a moment, we should focus on the implications. The league wide strikeout rate during this period was 22.5 percent, the league average walk rate was 8.5 percent, and the league average ISO was .161. So, of the ten hitters here, four of the hitters are above the league average rate in Ks, only three are below the league average in walks, and only four are below in isolated power. In other words, the lineup immediately becomes above average in all three categories.

Obviously, career averages are not necessarily accurate, but given recent seasons I think we can assert that Altuve will be worse in Ks, but not above the league average. His walk rate and ISO rates have been higher. We can also surmise that Cam Smith will be better in year two than he has been as a rookie. Otherwise, some improvements can be made across the board based on changes in approach. That might involve a change in hitting coaches, but that suggestion seems to be made every season. Let’s address the two obvious problems.

What do the Orioles get?

They already have their catcher of the future. They have no need for Yainer Diaz, so it would have to involve something else. Obviously, if you could trade one of those ten guys then the Astros would solve two problems at the same time, but that seems unlikely. That would mean trading either Isaac Paredes or Christian Walker. The Astros would likely prefer dealing Walker, but his contract is probably too onerous to deal. So, that means a combination of prospects and maybe someone from the major league roster. I am open to suggestions, but this is the part that is hard to get past.

It also means dealing Diaz in a separate deal. Suddenly, the offseason gets a lot more complicated. This is assuming that they don’t deal any of the other eight players. I foresee Correa, Altuve, and Smith being off-limits. Anyone else that isn’t a part of that LF/1B/3B triad would also have to be replaced. Suddenly, we are looking at three transactions. We will look at more of this later.

More on the logjam

As much as we might want it, baseball is not like fantasy baseball where you can easily cut some guys loose when they aren’t an optimal fit on the roster. Given the numbers above, moving Paredes to first base and finding a taker for Walker would solve some issues. It would alleviate the strain on the payroll and allow the team to spend on more pitching or another position. As you can see by the numbers, their K rate would also go down overall.

The trouble is two-fold. If Walker continues to be hot then his contract will be easier to unload, but he also will be harder to deal internally. If he falls back into a slump then the reverse is true. Therefore, it might end up being someone like Paredes and that is something the club clearly doesn’t want given his positional flexibility and numbers above.

The fear is that such a deal would cost you something other than those two. What if the Orioles want Jake Meyers? Losing Meyers himself doesn’t seem like a horrible loss, but it would create a hole in center field and would not solve the logjam at 3B/1B/LF. That problem lingers whether the Astros make such a move or not. It could be that the least month of the season will be an audition for Walker to see if he can force the Astros hand and get them to keep him.